Theatre

By Nancy Nesvet Okay, so now we acknowledge that the world of art is tied to economics. Only the Venice Biennale and other recent exhibitions after that model survive to showcase the best of new art not for sale or created with economic appreciation in mind, only the other kind. There is no shame in admitting people buy art to hang on their walls while also hoping the work goes up in value; that supports galleries who pay artists, a noble and necessary employment. The art fairs are a great venue for creating an art marketplace for collectors to buy and galleries to sell. But let’s acknowledge the distinction between and value of art fairs for fun and profit and the Biennales, Documentas and other not for sale art venues. That value was recognized until the recent economic debacle of Documenta 14 at Kassel and Athens. Not only did Documenta 14 lose millions of euros, but the loss … [Read more...] about THE BUSINESS OF ART: ART FREE FOR ALL

By James Foritano Cambridge, MA — I’m occupying the cat-bird seat in the intimate recital space of Cambridge’s Longy School of Music at Bard College at a pre-performance interview with cast members of a new operetta, “As One,” which will be presented January 25-28 by the Boston Opera Collaborative at Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall.
The two male vocalists sitting at our conference table are young, intense, and talented. They are bursting with information about what it’s like to represent with their resonant baritones the existential struggles of a young man, a boy really, transitioning to a mature woman.
I’m trying to focus as much as possible on the sense of what they’re saying, but the sensuousness of their trained voices short circuits, repeatedly, my hard- headed note taking.
I’m rescued, anchored by an anecdote related to me by vocal coach Jean Anderson Collier, sitting to my … [Read more...] about THEATER PREVIEW: BOSTON OPERA COLLABORATIVE PRESENTS “AS ONE” AT PICKMAN HALL

By James Foritano BOSTON, MA -- How best to introduce a play reeking with the ambiguities and ambivalences of the human situation is perhaps to start with a few paragraphs of bare facts. The title of the play under review is “A Guide for the Homesick” by playwright Ken Urban. Its current run takes place from October 6 through November at the Huntington Theatre Company’s new South End venue, the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. The main actors on stage are Mckinley Belcher III, playing “Teddy,” and Samuel H. Levine, playing “Jeremy,” under the direction of Colman Domingo. The setting and time are Amsterdam. Teddy’s hotel room. Evening and the following morning. January 2011. All these bare facts come together in a most accommodating and highly professional manner to hand the attending audience (you and me) a “guide” that is so “hot” you have to keep tossing … [Read more...] about THE HUNTINGTON THEATER COMPANY PRESENTS A GUIDE FOR THE HOMESICK

By James Foritano CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The current play produced by the Underground Railway Theater at The Central Square Theater is a serious and not-so-serious remake of romantic love, dating and destiny in the light of the latest cosmic discoveries. Award-winning English playwright Nick Payne was inspired to write “Constellations” after watching a NOVA program about the startling idea being seriously considered by quantum physics that our “universe” may actually be a “multiverse” of parallel universes in which everything and everyone are constantly being duplicated as we speak — and act, live — and die. Taking this revolutionary idea out of the test tube and applying it to a present-day artisan bee-keeper, Roland, played by Nael Nacer, and quantum physicist, Marianne, played by Marianna Bassham, speeds up and splits up the eternal present of “hooking up”/“settling down” … [Read more...] about Constellations at Central Square Theater

by Gregory Morell For those of us that have loved and lost and reflect back nostalgically on the possibilities of what could have been, Mamma Mia has a special relevance. The rest of us can just sit back and revel in the color and exuberance of musical pop puffery. Mamma Mia is the ideal beach musical, a fact well played by the Ogunquit Playhouse in the kick-off of their 85th season, which opened on May 19th and continues through the first of July. Though the setting is a remote Greek Isle on the Aegean coast, the steamy swim suited cast could easily be imagined on the scenic sands of Ogunquit beach. The music of ABBA propels the romance and disappoints of young love and the matrimonial hope and despair of sustained fidelity. The costume department and the lighting designer were on overdrive for this production and no excess was spared. This included a blinding array of gold … [Read more...] about Mamma Mia at the Ogunquit Playhouse

By James Foritano Shakespeare must have felt himself to be living in an increasingly and perilously fast-paced society when he penned A Midsummer Night’s Dream — still one of his most popular comedies in 1595-96. Earlier in that rumbustious century, England’s Henry VIII decided that he couldn’t abide an Italian pope telling him what he could and couldn’t do in his own marriage bed. So, Henry nationalized not only divorce laws but religion and all its far-reaching properties in England — thank you very much. Actors’ Shakespeare Project is presenting Shakespeare’s masterpiece through early June in a production directed by Patrick Swanson. In this classic favorite of the season, Theseus, the duke of Athens, in Shakespeare’s parable of his own life and times, is also in a hurry to wed his intended, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Recent antagonists on the battlefield though … [Read more...] about Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents: A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Multicultural Arts Center